


You Are Playing with Fire

by stardust_made



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, First Time, Het, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 10:06:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_made/pseuds/stardust_made
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"His eyes flash—she is mesmerised by their deep colour, but it’s not even that; it’s like she can see them change shape and colour and age, while remaining the same: intense, unfathomable, hypnotic. He lowers his face to hers and she finds her mouth dry."<br/>The Doctor and Donna engage in a battle of wills to a whole lot of unexpected results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are Playing with Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2011 for the porn battle at [](http://doctor_donna.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://doctor_donna.livejournal.com/)**doctor_donna**. The prompt was the title.
> 
> No beta, so apologies for any mistakes or roughness of prose.

 

Donna has never seen the Doctor rattled about _that_ before. Ever since they met, it’s been the default situation between them. He is a (skinny) alien. She is human. Anything _personal_ going on between them is out of the question, and kind of gross. She’s made her point time and time again—and he’s always been fine. More than fine. Donna is certain that if the Doctor hadn’t seen her evident alarm at the prospect of the two of them…you know, he wouldn’t have given her the ride of her life—no, not that kind of ride! She just means he wouldn’t have taken her with him, had he seen any gleam of “luurve” in her eyes.  
  
To cement their unspoken agreement, he’s always shown equal disinterest in her. What they’ve got is mutual. They’ve denied being a couple _together_. They’ve not flirted with each other _together_. They’ve not touched for anything more than a hug _together_.  
  
Now, they do hold hands. That might look a bit suspicious, but it really isn’t. It’s not like that. Okay, if Donna saw Nerys holding hands with some good-looking bloke she’d have thought it was _exactly_ like that. But with Donna and the Doctor it’s different. First of all, they didn’t go about it like teenagers. It took some time for the hand-holding to start. (The grabbing of hands in perilous situations didn’t count because, quite frankly, she’d have grabbed an octopus tentacle then.) No, they got familiar with each other first, then close, then closer.  
  
Until one day they landed somewhere unknown, and the Doctor had just grinned at her and wriggled his fingers invitingly. Donna had placed her hand in his without thinking. She’d noticed they were holding hands only after he’d let go—which was ages after they’d stepped out of the Tardis. Not that the duration of the incident is relevant. She’s just being thorough.  
  
And so their hand-holding had started and it was allowed—well, other kinds of touch weren’t _forbidden_ between them, strictly speaking. They just weren’t—aren’t, aren’t!—interested in each other, and that’s why there are no other kinds of touching. All in all everything has been straight in that department. There are boundaries. Not that they need them, because they aren’t thinking about each other _that way_! It is just…clear where they stand. Donna has always made her disparaging remarks about his looks and the Doctor has always looked as if he hadn’t even heard them.  
  
So why is it different now?  
  
It might have something to do with his ego. Donna doesn’t know if Time Lords have egos, but this Time Lord seems human enough to her; plus, knowing him, he is exactly the kind to have selectively picked up all the bad human traits, the way a schoolboy would learn all the naughty words in a foreign language first. And the Doctor seems man enough to her—not like that! She wants to say that all men have a giant ego. Donna has seen him beam when he dazzles her with something alien and brilliant. She’s seen him messing up his hair some more when he doesn’t realize she can see him. He likes her…attention. And Donna supposes that could mean he doesn’t like it bestowed elsewhere. Especially when he’s around.  
  
In light of all of the above perhaps she shouldn’t have made that joke about the his legs, at least not in front of the Ambassador from Graalth. But the Ambassador had complimented her all evening. The Doctor was the one to have to explain to her that all those touches of the Ambassador’s tail to her hair were exactly that - compliments. The Tardis didn’t translate body language, much to Donna’s embarrassment. It turned out that she’d sort of been flirting back in return when she was touching her hair at the places the tail had lingered. Donna isn’t trying to justify her behaviour. But although she’d never admit it in public—and never ever to _him_ —she misses attention. Male attention. Just a quick once over with an approving twinkle in the eye. Or a look that lingers two delicious seconds more. She misses having…twinges in her belly, the kind of thrill only—  
  
Anyway. Put on the other side of the scales, this is nothing compared to what she has with the Doctor. So she's gotten very good at trampling those moments of bitter-sweet longing. But she's only human, no matter that she's not on Earth anymore. And back at the fancy reception, Donna had let herself be wooed for just a moment. She had smiled and even giggled at a few of the Ambassador’s jokes. Maybe it didn’t help that she did it, while the Doctor was trying to balance that bright ball of gaslight-thingy on his finger and explode it like a miniature fireworks display. In front of her and for her amusement. She’d made the legs’ joke then. Oh dear. She does have a gob…  
  
Or maybe what _really_ didn’t help was that on the way back to the Tardis Donna told him the differences between species shouldn’t matter if two people— _“Oh, you know what I mean!”_ —hit it off. In her defence, she’d had three of the purple cocktails, the Ambassador had been very handsome, tail aside, and he had at his disposal a diplomatic spaceship with a _working_ Chameleon circuit, thank you very much. AND he had offered to take her down that Valley everyone was raving about, at Moonset. In his diplomatic ship, transformed into a bleeding Royal Carriage for her! A girl was allowed some gushing under the circumstances.  
  
But now she’s in the company of a thunder-faced Time Lord, who has been flipping some switches and giving her only single-word responses with the quickest eye contact.  This has been going on for three hours. And although she is secretly quite intimidated—he’s got such dark eyes sometimes, she is suddenly grateful she doesn’t get to be on their receiving end very often—Donna has never been one to tolerate moods, human or otherworldly. The purple cocktails swirl in her body, jolly and peevish, and light the match to her traditionally spirited…spirits.  
  
“All right, you." She confronts him, poking a finger into his chest. "Out with it.”  
  
The look the Doctor gives her more than makes up for the long absence of butterflies in her stomach. She expects an outburst but he just pins her with his stare for a long moment and then disappears to the other side of the console, where more abuse of switches and handles ensues.  
  
Right!  
  
She marches over to him.  
  
“Oi! Stop being childish and tell me what’s the matter with you.”  
  
He looks at her incredulously and his voice gets high-pitched.  
  
“What's the matter with—what's the matter with _me_? Nothing’s the matter with _me_!”  
  
“Yeah, right! You’ve been giving me the cold shoulder for—”  
  
“Re-e-eally not what you should have picked up on, Donna.”  
  
“Are you saying it’s _me_?”  
  
The Doctor looks at her again, and again her stomach flips. She’s shocked into awareness of how close they’re standing. And out of the blue she _knows_ he’s aware of it too. Something flickers in his eyes and makes them even darker, but he steps away and doesn’t say anything.  
  
Bloody Martian! Only he has the power to get her from zero to slap-time in three seconds.  
  
“Oh, that’s very mature, that is! Fine, tell me—what have I done?”  
  
Donna finds that the distance between them has shortened again and wonders if she was the one to move closer to him. Everything seems prickly: her skin, her temper, her mind. She doesn’t know what she’s doing or what she expects. She feels peaked and tipsy, and…good? Yes, good. Like she’s dancing after being stuck in a small cupboard for months. Before she has a chance to figure out why that is or how it’s connected to the Doctor, because it bloody well is, he turns to face her, and now there are only a few inches distance between their bodies. He speaks in a very measured way, but she knows him too well to be fooled.  
  
“Do you even know what you want, Donna?”  
  
She looks at him, hiding her confusion behind annoyance.  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
“You know what it’s supposed to mean.”  
  
Donna does. That’s the good thing about being with him—she doesn’t have to beat around the bush, she can be herself. Fine, if he wants this, he’ll get it.  
  
“Yeah, I do! It’s got nothing to do with me, though! If you can’t handle that someone is more interesting, or more charming, or smarter than you, that’s not my bleeding fault!“  
  
“He’s not more interesting or charming, and he certainly isn’t smarter than me.”  
  
The Doctor doesn’t raise his voice. In fact, his tone is even, yet it manages to make Donna shiver inwardly. Still, she needs to put her foot down.  
  
“Fine," she says. "You’re smarter. But he does have more charm. And since I’m the only woman around here I’ll be the judge of that, and I’m saying: That’s. How. It. Is.”  
  
The Doctor's eyes bore into hers. “You can’t be the judge of something if you haven't seen all of it,” he says.  
  
“What the hell are you talking about?” Donna’s temper gets even shorter—she hates it when he speaks in riddles.  
  
His body doesn’t move yet he looms over her and she is sharply prompted that skinny or not, he is taller than her. He speaks very softly, making tiny ants run up and down her spine.  
  
“Has it ever occurred to you that you only see in me what I allow you to see?”  
  
The cocktails are still partying in her blood but Donna senses this has just gotten serious. Her reply tries for irritation and doesn’t quite make it.  
  
“What—How do you mean?”  
  
“I mean that maybe I can be all those things—but I choose not to.”  
  
She believes him. God help her, she believes him, and it scares the living daylights out of her. Yet it's also thrilling, exactly the kind of thrill that she’s missed so much. Donna panics a little, then squashes it straight away. She raises an eyebrow at the Doctor with a dismissive huff.  
  
“Please! What, like you’re impossible to resist? Listen Spaceman, I don’t know what kind of a fan club you had going on around here, but I’m not one of your girls. You can’t make a grown woman interested just by trying harder.”  
  
Emotions flicker over his face so quickly that Donna gets dizzy. His jaw clenches and he seems to physically stop himself from moving. She watches his mouth, her eyes transfixed and waiting...she doesn’t know what. His lips open.  
  
“Don’t make me, Donna…” he says warningly.  
  
And because Donna’s always had that obstinate, rebellious, daring, _impossible_ trait in her, she pulls the devil by its tail.  
  
“Go on then.”  
  
His eyes flash—she is mesmerised by their deep colour, but it’s not even that; it’s like she can see them change shape and colour and age, while remaining the same: intense, unfathomable, hypnotic. He lowers his face to hers and she finds her mouth dry. Her tongue sneaks out to lick it. The Doctor raises his hand and his thumb brushes the wet spot on her bottom lip. Donna fights an outrageous, powerful impulse to take his thumb into her mouth; her eyes widen and she lifts them to meet his eyes. She knows he can see she’s mutely wavering. But he doesn’t relent, and Donna curses, curses herself for her audacity, all the while the thrilling current running through her.  
  
Her abdomen muscles contract; abruptly something else contracts much lower and deeper, and with a snap Donna realizes she is turned on like she hasn’t been in a long, long time. Before she can help it, she swallows then lifts her chin in a final attempt to deny him.  
  
The Doctor watches her and his eyes get hooded at her defiance. He makes one small step forward, but it means his body is brushing her breasts now, _oh_...  
  
Donna swallows again, damn it! The Doctor lowers his mouth to her ear and his scent hits her squarely in the chest, fills her lungs to the brim. Familiar and comfortable, it's like she’s always been aware of it subconsciously, sought it out even. But now it’s dangerous and intoxicating, and yet so… _good_ , drawing her in, like healways has.  
  
His lips brush her ear when he commands quietly, “Say please.”  
  
Her nostrils flare when she feels the jolt of arousal pierce her, but she manages to pull her head back and look up at him; then feebly shakes her head.  
  
The Doctor slowly blinks and his own nostrils flare for a second. Donna watches in a haze the odd contours of his face, the freckles she suddenly adores, his neck and his Adam’s apple—an unexpected reminder of how utterly male he is. Before she has a chance to look him in the eyes again, he lifts his hand and with the barest touch of the backs of his fingers drags it down from her collarbone over her left breast, and _oh God_ , her head swims with sensation and a torrent of desire. She feels him getting closer again and this time craves the contact. His breath caresses her neck and the fine hairs next to her ear.  
  
“Donna. Say please.”  
  
She gasps and leans forward into him. He aligns his body against hers and she circles his waist with her arm—oh, it feels _amazing_ to press into him, to feel him, she didn’t know, she didn’t realize how much she’d longed for—  
  
Donna knows she’s trembling, but she doesn’t care. She claws at his back, pulling him to her, wanting, needing…She drops her temple against his chest.  
  
“Please,” she says and her eyelids drop closed.  
  
A drumming beat vibrates through her whole being; she can’t distinguish between his heart—the one right under her face—or its twin on the other side, or her own heart. And there seems to be another beat there, too, echoing in her head...  
  
Donna gulps and a blazing hot wave washes over her, _how could I not know_ , _how could I not see_ _this_ —  
  
“Please,” Donna repeats, this time with a whimper. The drumming noise increases, it’s all one giant cacophony, but it’s making all her cells rejoice, _please, please_ —  
  
—and she feels his hand. It lifts her tunic and finds the button of her jeans to flip it so quickly and expertly, Donna stifles a groan. She automatically swallows her belly to invite his hand in. But the Doctor goes directly for the zip, pulls it down. His fingers flutter up to the edge of her bikini and with one swift motion slide under it and all the way down. Donna squeezes her eyes tighter, her mouth opening with a moan. She leans further into him and he drops his face to rest it on top of her head—she hears him sharply take a breath through his nose.  
  
Then he starts moving his fingers.  
  
She is going to come. She is going to come so quickly and so hard, it’s going to hurt. His middle finger— _long, elegant, I’ve noticed_ —plays, wet and hungry. Over and over it rubs, the two fingers on both sides of it just spreading rhythmically like a fan to mimic the motion, finding every nerve centre hidden in every fold. Donna moans, then moans again, face damp and red, and spreads her legs as wide as the restriction of her jeans allow her. She is all a throbbing hearth of need and at the centre of it is he, it is _his_ finger that is sliding further down this time and going in, inside of her, _deeper, deeper, Doctor_ —It’s _his_ hearts that she hears and it’s as if they’re beating in her chest; she wants him all in, she wants to be one with him, no one else but him: home, trust, connection _, we are one_ —  
  
Something explodes and Donna is soaring high into a nebula—stars and images fly through her, while her body shakes, its small, insignificant shell both precious and distant. She loses her breath and the burning heat of pleasure licks her edges, producing more and more visions, myriad of notions and sensations swirling her into their vortex. But he is there, in the middle of it. She meets him anew, yet so familiar:  keeping her from losing herself, her Doctor, her axis. She _is_ one with him, and she expands to allow him in but it’s too much, she’s too small, this body isn’t fit for it all, _Doctor_!!  
  
 _Donna, Donna_ — feverish and timeless, his voice ripples through her mind. Her eyes open into narrow slits and she sees a golden shimmer, before everything zooms out into complete blackness.  
  
***  
  
“Donna, Donna!”  
  
Donna stirs to respond to the voice that keeps calling her. The world returns to her with a _glomp_ and she understands that this time she’s hearing her name…outside her head. She frowns. When was she hearing it inside of it?  
  
“Donna?”  
  
She opens her eyes to look at the Doctor’s face and even through a blur she can see it’s contorted with worry, relief…and something else so alien that it makes her heart stop. She waits for her eyes to focus fully and the first thing she notices are his freckles. What a silly thing to notice.  
  
“Can you hear me?” the Doctor asks. His voice sounds strained and raw.  
  
Donna nods, then risks to lift her head. She’s slumped on the seats by the console. Her face is flushed and she has a splitting headache, but other than that nothing seems unusual. She frowns again.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
The Doctor looks at her with a carefully neutral expression. Donna panics that she’s done something stupid and embarrassed herself. The last thing she remembers is them arguing about something—She’d had those cocktails at the reception! Goodness, she hopes she didn’t throw up in front of him!  
  
Donna blinks—  
  
Wait, he hasn’t answered her yet, but is still watching her, intent. She smacks his lower arm weakly.  
  
“Hey. Stop that. What happened, did I—did I pass out?”  
  
He scans her face and she is certain only previous experience stops him from wiping out his sonic screwdriver and bleeping her. Finally he replies.  
  
“Something like that, yes. Don’t you remember?”  
  
Donna sits up and groans, holding her head. The Doctor is instantly cuping her face, peering into her eyes. Her headache abates at the contact and the supreme concern written all over him.  
  
“I’m all right,” she says reassuringly. “I don’t remember much. Just us coming back here after the reception. And then something about…stars or galaxies, or something—”  
  
The effort to remember worsens her pain immensely so Donna abandons it.  
  
“What happened?” she asks for a third time.  
  
He purses his lips, thoughtful, before he answers. “You passed out." His eyes don’t meet hers. "We got in and—yeah. You passed out. Must be the cocktails.”  
  
Donna has a nagging suspicion that something’s very wrong, but the mere attempt to think about it makes her nausea vicious. She capitulates and gets up gingerly.  
  
“I’m just going to go and have a lie down, yeah?”  
  
She is still dazed but at least she finds she can stand on her feet.  
  
“Yeah—you go and do that.”  
  
His voice is quiet. Donna nods and starts walking, then gives him a final glance. He is standing by the console, deeper in thought than she’s ever seen him, huge brain whirring in there. But underneath it all, he cuts such a lonely figure that Donna’s heart sinks. She wants to rush back and ask him what’s wrong. Or just hug him tight—she feels more connected to him somehow, closer...But she also feels like she’d left her body and came back to it two years later to find it shrunk and inhospitable. Donna slowly shuffles her feet in the direction of her room and gives him a silent promise to make the loveliest evening for two when she wakes up.

 


End file.
